The WNBA is adding charter flights for the entire playoffs and back-to-back regular season games this year, the league announced Monday.
The league will pay for all the flights.
“It’s significant dollars,” WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert told The Associated Press. “Now that we have best of three and five in the semifinals and finals. … You add it up, it’s a lot of flights.”
The cost is expected to be around $4.5 million, according to a person familiar with the negotiations. The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because details haven’t been publicly released.
Last year, the league chartered flights for the WNBA Finals as well as for the road team in the Commissioner’s Cup championship game. Since taking over in 2019, Engelbert has slowly added a few more charter opportunities for teams. She allowed playoff teams that were traveling for more than one time zone to fly charter if they only had a day between games in the past.
“It’s something I’ve been working on since I came into the league,” she said. “It was never coming up with money for one year, but creating a sustainable model for the charter program to continue in perpetuity. Once you do it, you have to do it every year.”
Engelbert said that there will be five charters needed during the regular…
